Over two years have elapsed since the April 2022 murder of 10-year-old Lily Peters, a case that shook Western Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley and made headlines both nationally and in the Twin Cities.
The disappearance and subsequent killing of the young girl in Chippewa Falls also revealed a weakness in Wisconsin’s child abduction alert system.
In spite of the fact that Peters’ father reported her missing at approximately 9 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, 2022, authorities were unable to issue an AMBER Alert due to a lack of sufficient details regarding the suspect or a vehicle.
The U.S. Department of Justice states that the strict government limits are in place to prevent potential overuse that “could lead to abuse of the system and ultimately weaken its effectiveness.”
Nevertheless, lifelong Chippewa Falls resident Eric Henry questioned why he did not receive any alerts on his phone regarding the 10-year-old missing as the desperate hunt for Peters carried on into the morning of April 25.
“It really struck a chord, knowing I lived really close to there, not having answers on what’s going on,” Henry stated. “Nothing’s going off on my phone. I’m literally reading it through Facebook.”
Police tragically discovered Peters’ body in the woods shortly after, and they detained a 14-year-old suspect in her murder.
Henry was unable to determine why he was not notified in any way, even though it is unclear if the case would have turned out differently had an AMBER Alert been issued. Those dismal days after Peters’s murder, he could not shake the thought as he went back to work.
“I was very curious about why there was no alert or anything sent out,” Henry stated. “It sounded like — I don’t want to say a flaw in the system — but there was something missing. Clearly, it needed to be addressed.”
Henry therefore made the decision to act.
He started a petition on Change.org to advocate for the introduction of a “Lily alert.” His proposal did not call for any particular policies, but rather aimed to increase public awareness of the need for an alert system with “less regulations around it so we can respond quicker to missing children.” The internet petition gained a remarkable amount of traction rapidly, with about 200,000 signatures as of this writing.
Henry delivered the petition to Jesse James, a Wisconsin state senator who was then serving in the State Assembly. James is the lone active law enforcement member in the legislature and a native of the Chippewa Valley.
“I want to say almost every legislator in Wisconsin was made aware of (the petition),” James stated. “The community speaks volumes when this type of situation happens and they wanted to see action.”
James initially described a challenging procedure. He met with prosecutors, law enforcement, and other relevant parties, but discovered that the Wisconsin legislature lacked much authority to alter federal AMBER Alert regulations.
The turning point was when Republican James met with Milwaukee state senator LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat.
Johnson informed James about Prince McCree, a five-year-old who went missing in Milwaukee but whose case did not satisfy federal requirements, after an interaction with James at an event. The parallels astounded James.
“I’m like, what?” James stated. “We shared what happened with Lily — and she was aware of it — and she’s like, ‘will you help me? I have an idea.'”
From there, a bipartisan coalition of senators led by Sens. Johnson and James drafted legislation to increase the state’s alert systems for missing children. They concentrated their efforts on the state’s Silver Alert system, which has traditionally been utilized for vulnerable adults, rather than the AMBER Alert criteria as they were unable to modify them.
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In the end, they managed to pass a bill that will allow law enforcement to issue Silver Alerts for missing children who may be in danger but do not exceed the AMBER Alert limit. More specifically, children under the age of ten will be covered by the enlarged Silver Alert system.
Though it honors the legacy of both Prince and Lily, the new law is called the “Prince Act” in honor of Prince McCree.
“(Sen. Johnson) is a Democratic Senator, I’m a Republican Senator, but working bipartisan, this just shows we do work together,” Sen. James stated. “If it saves one child… we won.”
Meanwhile, Eric Henry maintains his modesty. He did not hesitate to give James and other lawmakers credit for enacting his plan into law. But there’s no denying that he was involved in this as well.
